The Daily Star - U.N. official urges citizens to guard freedom, May 23 2012

By Stephen Dockery

BEIRUT: A United Nations official called on Lebanon not to lose sight of the importance of freedom of expression and assembly after recent violence in the country caused government representatives and several Gulf countries to skip the opening day of a United Nations conference Tuesday. The event held at the Riviera Hotel brought together most countries of the Arab region to discuss and agree on a framework for a larger acceptance of freedom of expression and assembly in a region known for stifling free speech.

After seeing that Lebanon’s representatives failed to attend, Fateh Azzam, from the U.N. office of human rights in the Middle East, told The Daily Star it was important the country didn’t give up of these rights to deal with instability, or things could get worse.

“You can’t have stability without expressing your views,” said Azzam.

He said the prevailing notion in the region and in Lebanon that you need security before freedom has been “the biggest mistake of the region for decades and decades.”

The excuses that there are considerable regional threats and other forces to be more concerned about don’t hold up, Azzam said.

“If you don’t have freedom of expression, of peaceable assembly, people will resort to violence,” he said.

He said the most important thing is to let people have space to speak about how they feel. “If they want to demonstrate for or against the Syrian regime, they should do that, they need to be able to do that.”

Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait did not attend the conference after they told their citizens to leave the country because of the deteriorating security situation.

Saudi Arabia also did not attend. The country says it has no plans to issue a travel warning to its citizens.

Participants also included the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights defenders and the U.N. deputy high commissioner for human rights.

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